NHL governors approve more logical schedule

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – The National Hockey League’s Board of Governors today approved a scheduling matrix which ensures that each Club will play every other Club a minimum of once per season. The format will go into effect for the 2008-2009 season.

Each Club will play the teams in its division three times at home and three times on the road, for a total of 24 games. Each Club will continue to play 40 games inside its conference but outside its division (10 opponents) twice at home and twice on the road. That brings the in-conference total to 64 games and maintains the integrity of a Conference-based playoff system.

The remaining 18 games in the 82-game schedule will involve each Club playing each Club in the other conference at least once, home or away, with the three remaining games being devoted to interconference “at-large” scheduling.

The format represents a change from the matrix approved by the Board for the 2005-06 campaign. That format called for four games (40 total) against each non-division conference opponent, eight games (32 total) against each in-division opponent and 10 inter-conference games – one game at home against each of the five clubs from a designated division and one game on the road against all five clubs from a different division.

It’s a step in the right direction at least. The western conference teams play a faster, more wide-open style, and here in the east we tend to use a trap style more often. Mixing it up over the course of the season is good for the game.

I’m already planning my road trip to see them in San Jose in March and then to LA for both games, if this means I can make that a kind of annual thing I’m all for it. And you’ll still have rivalries, I’m not worried about not hating the Leafs as much because we see them only 6 times instead of hate.

all teams in the same conference are competing for the same playoff spots so all teams should play each other the same amount of times. Our division is probably the best division in the eastern conference especially with the sabres regaining form. To prove it we are 7-7-1 in our own division and 6-1-2 with the rest of the eastern conference. What would our record be if we were in a different division

I personally can’t wait to see Nashville! They’ve got Radek Bonk a former Hab and they have some of Uncle George’s money which they used to sign Jason Arnott!!! Oh, don’t point that fact out to Predators fans or they will call you an ignorant Hockey Snob from Canada. Six teams can go tomorrow, please.

If they really want to make the divisions worth something, they should go back to the old format where you had to play your way out of the division in the playoffs. Two divisions, top four teams in each make it.

I haven’t thought this move through and through, but off the cuff, I think I like it, based solely on the notion that I really like the idea of playing Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver more often. Montreal/Calgary is just a good hockey game. I still recall ’89 ….

Well, it doesn’t fully solve the problem of seeing each team at home every year. Since you only play each team once, and it might be on the road, we might only see some Western teams here every other year.

But I guess it’s reasonable. Otherwise you’d have to play 30 games out of 82 against opponents that you’re not fighting for playoff spots. That’s too big a percentage.

It’s clearly a better plan that what we’ve had over the….

ZZZZZZ– Oh!

Sorry, I fell asleep remembering the month of NoSabre, er, I mean, November.

Hockey fans are funny. Before the recent changes, we all used to complain that we didn’t want to see Nashville on a Tuesday night, or Columbus on a Thursday night, because these games meant nothing. No history. No rivalry. The cry was always…More Leaf games! More Bruins games!
Now, I guess, the latest wishes of fans have cme true. We’re going from seeing division rivals, real rivalries, 8 times a year to 6. And God bless the long-standing tradition of the Pheonix Coyotes! Coming soon to a Bell Centre near you…The Predators!! If 14 games a year against the biggest rivals worked in the Original 6, it works for me too! That’s when opposing players REALLY hated each other. (See: Rocket, The)
My conclusion: When exactly are we going to see contraction?

Couldn’t agree more. There’s maybe four or six teams I’d gladly lop off. And now there’s talk of moving a franchise (gawd I hate that word) to LAS friggin VEGAS. Las Vegas has no business having any WATER, let alone ICE.

The answer to your question is, of course, over Bettman’s frozen corpse.

The Board of Governors should have discussed why it is that in the “new NHL”, forwards can slam into goalies with near impunity. Perhaps someone could explain why the NHL even bothers to paint the ice blue in the goalies’ creases. What is the point? I am getting very frustrated observing inconsistent officiating over this issue of goaltender interference. One game, you cast a glance at a goalie and it is a penalty, another game Jason Blake runs a goalie into the net and then Sundin “miraculously” scores while the goalie is flailing away deep in the net. This is just pure and simple bullshit. Dear Gary Bettman: either instruct the officials to enforce the goddamn rules or change them.
_________________________________________________________“Play every game as if it is your last one.”
–Guy Lafleur